Obituary for Corrado Bohm

Corrado Bohm, professor emeritus at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", left us on October 23 at the age of 94. He has been an exceptionally talented and creative researcher: his results have deeply influenced the development of theoretical computer science.

In Corrado's PhD thesis a language, a machine and a compiler were designed together for the first time. No compiler was written in its own language before.

The seminal result (more than 200 citations in the seventies) nowadays known as the Bohm-Jacopini theorem has been a theoretical basis of structured programming, opening the way to all generations of modern programming languages.

In the sixties, Corrado was one of the first scientists to investigate the link between λ-calculus and theoretical computer science, a fruitful research field which later became established as the foundation of programming language semantics. The Bohm theorem suggested the representation of λ-terms as Bohm trees, widely used in the literature. His work and ideas have been strongly in uential in the domain of lambda calculus and its applications to programming but also, more generally, for the whole field of programming theory.

On the occasion of his 70-th and 90-th birthday, the international Computer Science community dedicated to Corrado Bohm two volumes of international journals. In 2001 he was awarded in recognition of a distinguished career in theoretical computer science by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, EATCS AWARD.

Corrado always worked with an amazing enthusiasm, generosity and curiosity. He was in great love with Science. He was ready, at any moment, to speculate on general scientific problems as well as to discuss highly technical questions. And he was doing research sharing his compelling passion with young students as well with senior researchers. Corrado has been also a fantastic teacher, many of his students are now successful researchers in prestigious universities.

All friends and colleagues of Corrado want to express their condolences to his wife Eva, his sons Michele and Emanuele, his daughter Ariela, his daughter in law Francesca, his grandson Alfredo and his granddaughter Mila.